Rethink book as computer interface, says designer (w/ Video)

(Phys.org)—A Polish designer has taken the word "interface" to an interesting level. Waldek Wegrzyn has a prototype that teases us into thinking about future interconnection opportunities that lie between the book and the computer. We might be about to turn a corner where there is no either-or choice to be made between a print book and an e-book, a print newspaper or an online site, but rather both print and digital working with each other. The book becomes part of the computer reading experience. His creation, called Elektrobiblioteka (Electrolibary), bridges a chasm separating print and screen. This came about as a diploma project at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, and it is catching eyes and imaginations.

Wegrzyn as student created his work in the Multimedia Publications Studio at the academy. The final result of his project was a paper book that can be connected to a computer via USB cable. The book communicates with javascript code on the website. With his concept, the book serves as a companion to web pages in that the physical book presides over the on-screen text. Flip pages of the book? The web pages flip over too. You control the screen via the book. The book can be browsed as any other regular book but when connected to the computer via USB, you get added information and animations, appropriate to the page that is open. He used a set of circuits made of conductive paint printed with a silk-screen method. This allowed him to add touch-sensitive elements to illustrations. The website was created with HTML, CSS, PHP and jQuery, mostly in Adobe Dreamweaver. Wegrzyn used the teensy development board, a USB-based microcontroller development system.

Elektrobiblioteka is online now and one can peruse his work and its functions. The site is in Polish. While site visitors may not read Polish and have easy access only to awful automated translations, the eyes have it. Much can be appreciated; numerous bloggers agree that he is on to something.

Forward-looking sales catalogs, children's literature, and magazines are easy to imagine, using his techniques. The interest that his project has drawn surprised Wegrzyn, as he said his effort was not toward a commercial product, only intended for presentation as a prototype. According to CreativeApplications.Net, there are only three existing copies.

In This is Paper magazine, Wergrzyn said one of his major inspirations was the manifesto "The topography of typography" published in 1923 by graphic designer El Lissitzky. It was Lissitzky who foresaw that one day there could be something he called an "electrolibrary" that would replace a book. "It seems that his predictions came true," Wergrzyn said. "The great interest in my project that I encounter surprised me. I did not expect that at all, so maybe this project can be developed further."

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40 comments

So I am holding this thing in one hand and a tablet in the other? Nah-

Borders fell, barnes and noble is next. Books are doomed.

I've been watching a mass effect 3 walkthrough on YouTube, some 40 vids, and I'm thinking what a peculiar juxtaposition of communications experiences. Commentary from a guy as hes playing through a game with subtitles. You can even leave comments and suggestions.http://www.youtub...a_player

Great lack of imagination @Ghostofotto. Books are doomed? Hold a tablet in the other hand? U make me laugh...Great work from Werczyn, great video. Wonder were this can lead to.

I imagine it won't lead anywhere. Why would you need a book AND a tablet? You have a compulsion to turn a page maybe? You need to see 2 opposing pages at once? Buy 2 tablets then. Still more convenient than a bookshelf full of books sitting at home while you need to look something up when you're elsewhere.

Very interesting. Certainly manuals and instruction booklets could be adapted. I would be really fine if you could watch complex instructions be carried out. Fantastic for service people and the elderly, among many others.

Why would a bibliophile need to be weaned from books by some gadget? Too much time with your gadget in your hand, Otto.

Well you don't need books eh? You showed us how to find your gay porn online didn't you, by posting links?

Wow...I see that not much has changed since my last comment months ago. Old Blotto is STILL talking about his gay porn sites. Nobody talks incessantly about such things unless he is thoroughly enamored with it. It seems to be constantly on Blotto's mind!!!

This is a science website, as Blotto has mentioned a few times. He has also mentioned in a few posts that children might read these things. But here he is, once again, talking about gay porn. Could be that Blotto has taken a few peeks at those sites that the dreaded PussyCatEyes had proffered old Blotto?

Hmmm, I wonder if PussyCatEyes has given birth yet. Her profile says that she is pregnant.

Back in the 1980's or 90's there was a company who sold a hand-held gadget that was attached to a printer by a USB cable. Can't recall the name of the company or what the gadget was called. Apparently, it worked by placing the bottom of it on a piece of paper or a book and sliding it downward over the printed page. It was supposed to pick up an image of the page and transmit it to the printer. It might have also been capable of transmitting the image to a computer screen...but I'm not sure about that part. Anyway, the size of the gadget's width was rather short, so a large book was out of the question, unless I'm mistaken on that. I don't know if it worked that well since I never used it. It was interesting though.

I like this Elektrobiblioteka and book combination. It may also be of great value in making electronic copies of very old books that must not be placed in a photocopier because the pages and/or the spine are too delicate.

Yes. Self updating manuals would really be a great thing. For me it would be nice to have self updating program language reference manuals. It's still easier to quickly mark and check something in a book (when methodology is concerned and not just API) than search around for an explanation on the web. (And it would be great for our customers if their manuals updated with every release)

Unfortunately methodology dates rather quickly in the programming world, so I have to rebuy the updated books every 2 years or so. Even on the web you're also not guaranteed to land on a page that gives you the latest info. There are as many out-of-date sites on the web as there are current ones.

So having a medium where you could be certain to always find the newest info at a glance would be very valuable.

Back in the 1980's or 90's there was a company who sold a hand-held gadget that was attached to a printer by a USB cable. Can't recall the name of the company or what the gadget was called.

It is called a SCANNER. There are SCANNER/copiers all over the place. You and your gay porn-posting bf should get out more rather than having stove sex and perusing gay porn sites.

So is NASA giving you maternity leave?

Yes. Self updating manuals would really be a great thing. For me it would be nice to have self updating program language reference manuals. It's still easier to quickly mark and check something in a book

-Because you're used to it? PDF manuals can be noted up and self-updating. And with you all the time in a tablet.

Do you imagine we will still be using tablets thirty years from now? Even ten years from now?

Of COURSE. They will be printed, flexible, disposable, and eventually free. They will be like a book or folio with one page.

It was supposed to pick up an image of the page and transmit it to the printer. It might have also been capable of transmitting the image to a computer screen...

You know p/r/r/p/Obie/estiban I am surprised they don't have copier/SCANNERS in your department at NASA? is this because of budget constraints, or for security reasons, or is it because you are a lying dumbass?

That doesn't answer the question does it?You are mixing people again Otto. Not unusual for you, a poor hurt gamer child.

* OtherGhostofOtto *

Estevan57 --I am surprised that you have continued to put up with the nasty lies that Blotto can't seem to help spreading against you and me and countless others on this website. I have to give you a lot of credit for displaying such patience with a person like Blotto who has given plenty of evidence to everyone that he is not in his right mind. Blotto is one of those certified trolls who come into a science website and makes it his own. He is possibly some Physorg moderator's crazy blood relative. Blotto likes to lecture people about things that they knew already and just failed to mention. His clownish antics is a source of mirth and merriment for us all.Anyway, I took a few days off from NASARe: books & electronics --books don't need anything but a light to read by, while a power outage affects both. {continued}

However, sunlight will suffice for reading a book outdoors or by a sunny window indoors. Gadgets are nice to have, of course, but they do have built-in obsolescence for most, particularly when newer features are added in to make the product more appealing to potential customers who have a "must-have" attitude. Eventually though, you reach a saturation point where even the best and newest and more advanced gadgets seem to be not so much a necessity to own, and you look at all the stuff you've bought for the last 30 years, and you realize that you've used up a lot of money just trying to "keep up with the Joneses", electronically. Lending libraries and book stores will never go out of style, no matter how advanced reader gadgets become. Learning how to write a letter and a resume' (by hand) will also stay around in spite of the gadgets. Reading a book on a screen when the book itself is available seems a bit redundant, especially when the book itself has to be prepared with wires, etc.

It was supposed to pick up an image of the page and transmit it to the printer. It might have also been capable of transmitting the image to a computer screen...

You know p/r/r/p/Obie/estiban I am surprised they don't have copier/SCANNERS in your department at NASA? is this because of budget constraints, or for security reasons, or is it because you are a lying dumbass?

Ahaahaahaaa.

--Theghostofotto1923

Again and again Blotto misquotes and misinterprets the easy stuff due to his limited mental capabilities. I was talking about a hand-held gadget that was available OVER 30 YEARS AGO. Of course it was a scanner, but I chose to call it a "gadget", since I had no intention of buying that particular one. It was not worth the money and the company eventually went out of business. I just can't recall the name of the gadget or the name of the company that made it. I knew back then that in years to come, more advanced scanners/copiers would be built. Planned obsolescence.

Obamasocks - I changed my "name" to OtherGhost for a 10 dollar bet from my wife. No other reason. I do find it amazing he will call me names of people that I have actually been in discussion with on this site. Some I have looked up and find reeeeeeally stupid.

Crazy bitch, Otto is, Yoda would say.

I'm not as patient as you may think though. I occasionally bait Otto and prove him wrong just to piss him off. It's like taking candy from a baby. It amuses my sons to no end.

I almost feel sorry for him, he seems like such a damaged human, but whem I look at older posts of his I see what a shit he really is. I have an idea though - I'll go PM and tell you.

The down side of this whole situation is that I tell my friends to go to other sites for science news. Oh well, if they can't monitor the comments then they get wars and garbage like Otto.

Because you're used to it? PDF manuals can be noted up and self-updating. And with you all the time in a tablet.

Tablets are clunky. You can scratch them, I wouldn't take one to the beach and leave it there while I go swimming (I have no compunction about doing same with a book). And when all is said and done: a book can bio-degrade. Which tablets (even foldable and/or disposable ones) won't be for the foreseeable future.

Obamasocks -I almost feel sorry for him, he seems like such a damaged human, but whem I look at older posts of his I see what a shit he really is.

* TheOtherGhost *

I have no such "feelings" of compassion for Theghostofotto1923, a dog turd whether in his primary name or his many sock puppets. My opinion of Blotto is that he is the same way OFFLINE as he is in this website...mentally defective. That is most likely the reason why he has made this site his "home" and spends so much time posting his nonsense and lecturing other people with data that he has had to "look up" in Wikipedia or some other site so that he can appear just as smart as, or smarter than everyone else. Too bad that he gets most of his information wrong and those he tries to impress only wind up laughing at him.Blotto would be literally LOST without the internet and the Google search engine. He would answer questions with "hummana hummana hummana" like the old Jackie Gleason "Honeymooners" TV shows.

Estevan57 --I am surprised that you have continued to put up with the nasty lies that Blotto can't seem to help spreading against you and me and countless others on this website. I have to give you a lot of credit for displaying such patience

As you already know this suckpuppet of yours got banned. Lack of patience is my guess.

However, sunlight will suffice for reading a book outdoors or by a sunny window indoors.

Er except at night?

Anyway, I took a few days off from NASA

And you still haven't explained why, even though you work at a place with plenty of scanners, you didn't know what a scanner was? Perhaps because it is the National Anachronisms and Suckpuppets Association?

Lending libraries and book stores will never go out of style

Borders just went out of style. People go to libraries to use the terminals there. TERMINALS - look it up. Try GOOGLE.

Of course it was a scanner, but I chose to call it a "gadget", since I had no intention of buying that particular one.

No because as you said you didn't know WHAT it was called. So we have caught the lying flooding suckpuppet pirouette/Ritchieguy/russkiye/pussytard/estevan/obamasucks, who is obviously dumb as a post but thinks they can still pretend to be a ufologist/farmer/Bolshevik/nurse/farmer/NASA worker, LYING again.

Of course it was a scanner, but I chose to call it a "gadget", since I had no intention of buying that particular one.

No because as you said you didn't know WHAT it was called. So we have caught the lying flooding suckpuppet pirouette/Ritchieguy/russkiye/pussytard/estevan/obamasucks, who is obviously dumb as a post but thinks they can still pretend to be a ufologist/farmer/Bolshevik/nurse/farmer/NASA worker, LYING again.

--Blotto-- ROFLOL...as usual, Blotto is a source of incredible amusement. That is one wierd but funny guy, that Blotto. When I said I didn't know what it was called, I was referring to brand name and the model. Try to wrap your greasy pointy head around that, Blotto...brand name and model. That would be similar to a Samsung (brand) and Galaxy S (model) being a "smartphone".

Actually, the brand name and model was no big thingy 30 years ago, since I had no intention of purchasing something that would be obsolete by the next year. Yes, it WAS a "scanner" and hand-held, but to me it was a piece of crap gadget, which is why I don't remember the brand name or the model.Also, your obsession with me is definitely UNNATURAL. And your decision to call me by several of your own sock puppets' names...what were they again? p/q/r/s/t/u/v/ and a cast of thousands are, by definition, convincing that you are either OFF your meds, or are in dire need of a new formulary. Everyone who comes into these threads and finds you posting are already aware that your mind has flown South...or maybe West, and has left your neurons in complete disarray and firing haphazardly in no logical fashion. Your brain is deteriorating fast, as is evidenced by your obsessing over things of no consequence to anyone else but you. I explained about my primary name and this one, try to accept it.

So Idjit Otto, got a reasonable explanation why You, I, AND Ritchie are in a conversation in the thread? Page 6 or so.

This facility of yours is easy to explain. Both the pirouette and pussytard suckpuppets were used by at least 2 different people, by their/your own admission. Apparently you all think this is as clever as your anagram silliness. Your sickness is multidimensional. Since you always present yourselves as one thing there is no reason not to address you as such.

So Idjit Otto, got a reasonable explanation why You, I, AND Ritchie are in a conversation in the thread? Page 6 or so.

-Or you are just pretending, as you pretended to be a Russian and a farmer and a nurse, and a NASA worker etc. I suppose pretending to be an incredibly stupid person can be difficult. Or not.

Actually, the brand name and model was no big thingy 30 years ago, since I had no intention of purchasing

-And so the incredible dumbass tries to explain herself out of a lie, with yet more lies.

Also, your obsession with me is definitely UNNATURAL.

-And when even SHE realizes it's not working, switches to a personal attack. Sorry that does not work either.

If you post outrageous nonsense, you should expect to get FLAGGED for it yes? As MANY people have told you. Whether you or your gay porn-loving bf or your inlaws or your kids or your poor little niece, like it or not. And this will NOT change.

"My work with you is mostly done. I had a couple of friends that wanted to join in the comments without your invective laden spewage following them around, so I led you on a merry little chase.They decided not to use the section, but will continue to read the articles and vote on them."

-And here is 'theotherghostofotto' referring to estevan as if he were not in fact, himself:

"LULZ - pretty damn funny to me. This guy rules you Oddo.He made you his bitch.Your smoking mom is an idiot."

So Otto, got a reasonable explanation why You, I, AND Ritchie are in a conversation in the thread? Page 6 or so.

Uh because it was only you and me?

The Medical Express post was to let you know I had changed my name. I guess you're not that subtle... Gotcha.

You mean by talking to yourself? Or about yourself as if you were somebody else?

Then he drops out and I continue discussion, just to fool you?

Please. Jigga/terriva/natello/alizee and the electric universe guy does that a lot. Which is where you learned it I suppose.

How can we trust you esai when you cant even admit that estevan got banned (again)?

Like I say, you - your bf/gf - your inlaws - your kids - your poor little niece... people pretending to be each other for the purpose of flaming, flooding, gangrating and vandalizing an otherwise decent site full of good people. You (all) dont fit.

And the fact that you keep getting your ass banhammered confirms this.

What is this banhammered you speak of?And I have no gf or bf, I am married. Enjoy your forever alone.Damn, Otto, you are just so freaking stupid.May God enrich your life with bountiful understanding and tolerance for others. Spiro Agnew.

What is this banhammered you speak of?And I have no gf or bf, I am married.

-I do remember that pussy said she was recently married. Wouldnt want to bear a bastard now would we? I do hope that there are no problems as pussy (you) does enjoy sex up against the microwave, and has already had 5 (five) miscarriages you know. I suggest lots of rest. And uh give up the chesterfields.

Enjoy your forever alone.Damn, Otto, you are just so freaking stupid.May God enrich your life with bountiful understanding and tolerance for others. Spiro Agnew.

Aha..so Blotto morphs into his sock puppet, TheMagnificentMasterbator - aptly titled, I hear. Probably does it in front of a ladies' powder-compact mirror...the small size of the mirror being adequate, I would think.

My ex-wife (she has custody of the Earth) had such a face powder compact with tiny mirror, the size of which probably suits Blotto's requirements. I would love to introduce my ex to Blotto...and it would serve her right. No, I'm not vindictive, but she is still unemployed and needs a sucker...er, I mean...a husband.

What is this banhammered you speak of?And I have no gf or bf, I am married. Enjoy your forever alone.Damn, Otto, you are just so freaking stupid.May God enrich your life with bountiful understanding and tolerance for others. Spiro Agnew.

* Estevan57 *

Apparently you have Blotto confused now. Both your primary name and your sock are present on this page, but Blotto has his blinders on, so he must not have seen it. He is most likely busy being the MagnificentMasterbator at this time, so your changing names would go unnoticed.Anyway, it is an exercise in futility to mention God to Blotto. He will only give you some quotes from the O.T. and explain how Jews are not real Jews. We do need his lectures on religion, of course, since we are mere neophytes. Blotto's attempts at scientific discussion always falls flat....so he relies heavily on the Bible.

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